Digimon Hackers
by Dream Ablaze
Summary: A few years after 02, a virus spreads over the Digital World, corrupting Digimon and shutting off access by humans. The only ones who can save it are five kids who can somehow hack into the DigiWorld. Will they be able to work together to beat the virus?
1. Meet the Hackers

**Digimon Hackers**

Hi everyone. :3 I wrote this a little while ago, and decided to upload it while I work on my other fic "It's All in the Cards." Everything in this story will be explained soon, so just bear with me. xD Okay, read on!

**Chapter One: Meet the Hackers**

_A ring of light hovered in the air._

"_This is a dream," a voice said. It was light and pleasant, but it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. Perhaps it was from the ring itself? "This was the only way to contact you. You will not remember this until the time comes for you to know it. Then this dream will be clear to you."_

_The ring began to flicker, like a dying candle._

"_There isn't much time. Please come soon. We need you."_

_The ring's light gave off one last light, then burned out._

"_You are our only hope…" the voice said, trailing off._

-x-

Catharine Thomas groaned as her alarm clock woke her up. It was always too early… Why couldn't school start at a normal time, like one in the afternoon? She knew in the back of her mind that getting up at 11:30 would soon be too early, also, if her wishes were real, but she just told her brain to shut up.

Yawning loudly, she sat up and stretched. Light poured in through the ugly iron bars on her bedroom window, next to her apartment's fire escape. There was a curtain, but it didn't do much in the mornings. Her small room was already bathed in light.

Finally, she got up and stumbled to her dresser, blindly grabbing whatever clothes she could reach. Cat shuffled down the hall to the apartment's tiny bathroom. She could barely see as she threw her clothes on the ground and started the shower. But after she had showered, she was as awake as usual.

Cat was usually good-natured, though she did have a bit of a quick temper when it came to injustice, as she was very compassionate. She was very athletic and usually neglected school, though she was naturally gifted at math and English. Though she had few friends, she was loyal and friendly to those she had. Always full of life, she was energetic and persistent, even when she got things wrong. She was a little bossy, and rather outspoken, but she never realized she was doing anything wrong. Sometimes she managed to hurt peoples' feelings by being too inconsiderate or not paying enough attention to their problems. She tried to be the best friend she could, though – to those who would talk to her, at least. There were a few people at school who seemed to hate the fact that she was alive – Tiffany Preston, to name one snotty girl with a huge trust fund (though Cat had serious doubts about her getting into college) and no problems (besides lack of a brain). Cat didn't let Tiffany or any of her snobbish friends get her down, though. She was a naturally bouncy sort of person, who didn't let setbacks discourage her. After dressing, she grinned at herself in the mirror.

She was a tall girl of fourteen. She had stick-straight blonde hair that fell just to her chin, so it wouldn't get in the way. Her brown eyes were big and usually had the same excited sparkle to them that they had now (only, of course, after waking up fully). Unlike most of the girls in her class, she wore absolutely no makeup – ever. As a full-fledged tomboy, she wore clothes that could all be considered unisex. Today, she had grabbed a pair of beat-up, baggy jeans, a t-shirt with a cow on it, and her signature oversized jacket in kelly green. After she ate a huge breakfast of cereal and brushed her teeth, she shoved her feet inside her hightop sneakers.

Her mom had died when she was little, so it was just Cat and her dad. But he was usually nowhere to be seen around the house. He worked for a newspaper, and spent all his time there. Cat didn't really mind; she didn't get very lonely. She tried to spend most of her time out of their apartment, anyway. It was too small.

Finally it was time for her to leave. Cat grabbed her backpack, ran out the door, locked it, and hurried down the hallway towards the elevator. Checking her watch, she saw that she was cutting close on time – as usual – and she would have to hurry – as usual – to catch her bus.

Cat rode the elevator impatiently down to the apartment's lobby, then raced out the door, nearly knocking down a confused-looking old woman. "Sorry!" she called as she rushed by. Her bus stop was just half a block down the hill, but she saw her bus already approaching. Racing against it, she made it to her stop just as the bus pulled up to it.

Cat, though still gasping for air, boarded the bus happily. She waved her pass at the driver and found a seat near the front. From here, it was a long bus ride to her school, which was up a few hills and over more than a few blocks, in a nicer area of town. The only reason she even got to go to the school was because she used her grandma's address – and her grandma lived in a nursing home.

She settled back in her uncomfortable seat, feeling envious of all the students who lived near her school – and not just because they didn't have to go as far to get there from their big houses on top of the hill.

-x-

Far away, in one of these houses (in fact, one of the biggest on the hill), Mark and Marie Ardeaux were just waking up.

He woke up first, rubbing his green eyes before sitting up in his huge bed. The Ardeaux family was one of great wealth, the kind that has homes in multiple countries. Their "summer cottage" in the south of France was a twenty-room giant with its own Olympic-sized pool, sauna, handful of hot tubs, and observation deck. They owned a private miniature ski resort in Switzerland, as well as a ski lodge-themed mansion to go with it with a seemingly ever-present ten-foot tall fire roaring in the hearth day and night. In a similar fashion, they had a house in Sweden made completely out of ice (but they didn't stay in it much, because both Marie and her father were very susceptible to the cold). They even owned a small island in the Caribbean, though it was very unpractical as they had to fly in all their food and supplies on plane. Their other homes were in America, England, Japan, Australia, Italy, and some of the more unpronounceable small countries that scatter Europe.

After stretching and sliding out of the bed, he got up and exited his room, walking down the hall towards Marie's door. When they were younger, that had always been inseparable, and even now they were very close for siblings. Neither of them liked to be awakened by the "help", but Marie, a heavy sleeper, didn't take any notice of alarm clocks. Mark would always set his alarm, then wake up his sister – what he was about to do now. He opened her door and stepped into her room.

Marie's room was about the same size as his, but where his was relatively sterile and common for a bedroom, hers was vivid and unique. Marie was very interested in art, and famous paintings as well as some of her own sketches and what she called "dabblings with paint" (Mark considered them more along the lines of "masterpieces of insane genius-ness") lined the plum walls. Hanging ornaments, like carved wooden animals and glass prisms hung from her violet-with-puffy-clouds-painted ceiling. On the other side of her room, Marie slept in her enormous purple canopy bed.

Mark crossed over the hardwood floor and Persian carpets, then leaned down next to her bed. "Princess Marie, wake up," he said.

Oddly enough, this was the only thing that could wake her up without using force. He had always said it to her when she was younger to wake her up (back when she had wanted to be a princess), but it still stuck. Now she hated it, but preferred being called a princess to being shaken awake by her annoyingly athletic brother.

Marie opened her big eyes, the same jungle-green color as her brother's. "Good morning," she said, when she saw her brother, offering him a small smile. Even to her twin brother, the person who knew her best in the world, she was always painfully polite. Mark sometimes got frustrated that she even kept her guard up around him, but he couldn't stay mad at her. Nobody could ever stay mad at Marie.

The two twins were very alike, yet very different. They were both relatively well-balanced for growing up in a family of such wealth. Mark was pragmatic, though it wouldn't reveal itself when one talked to him. Marie was a dreamer, who lived inside her own head. Mark told the whole world whatever was on his mind, while Marie was too selfless that she even felt guilty when she admitted she had a cold. Mark was much louder than shy Marie, and the mischievous Mark was a compulsive liar while Marie was too innocent to tell a lie. Mark was somewhat arrogant, but not as spoiled as he should have been as an Ardeaux. Marie wasn't either. Mark thought it must be because she was too kind to be a spoiled brat, though he admitted in a self-deprecating way that he didn't know why _he _wouldn't be one. Mark, older by just two minutes, was always taking care of Marie. She wasn't a strong person in body or in mind – they both knew this. She got sick too easily and gave up on many things because she felt she was too weak. The brash and sometimes selfish Mark might have seemed like the least likely candidate for the job, but he was Marie's constant guardian.

They looked more alike than they acted. Along with their identical eyes, they both had the same chestnut brown hair, though Marie's fell to the small of her back in loose curls while Mark's was cut short. They shared the same ivory complexions, though Mark's had darkened considerably from all the time he spent outside, and freckles dotted his cheeks. Marie preferred to stay indoors, and so she was extremely pale. They were both tall, with long limbs, but where Marie took after their willowy, thin father in build, Mark took after their strong, athletic mother. This was also somewhat based on their hobbies, but Mark had always been the strong one, where Marie looked so fragile she could break if treated too roughly.

"I'm going to run down and give them our breakfast orders, okay?" Mark informed his sister. "What do you want?"

Marie blinked, then stretched her thin arms above her. "I'm not very hungry. But why don't I go down there and tell Chelsea what we want?" Chelsea was their beloved cook, who enjoyed nothing more than stuffing the twins with extravagant helpings of food.

Mark shook his head, springing up. "Naw, I'll do it! Okay, I'll order you toast and a cheese omelet."

Marie considered this, then smiled. "You know me too well."

"Of course I do! I'm your twin!" Mark grinned. "Seeya at breakfast!" He ran out of Marie's room, closing the door behind him.

After Mark placed orders with Chelsea, he returned to his huge bathroom to shower and dress, just as Marie did a few doors down. Today, he wore jeans that he didn't even know were worth $200 and a baggy red t-shirt, while Marie dressed in a white blouse and a Bohemian-style purple skirt with sequins and beads sewed to it. She beat him downstairs, somehow, even though all he did was throw on clothes and run his hands through his hair. Marie had much more to do to get ready, though she didn't put much time into her appearance, which she deemed unimportant.

"Just on time!" Chelsea sang as she entered the dining room from the kitchen, carrying two plates. "One stack of pancakes and bacon for Mark," she said, setting the plate down in front of him. The pancakes were loaded with maple syrup and powdered sugar, just the way he liked them. "And one omelet and sourdough toast for Marie." The omelet she placed in front of Marie was large and full of lots of cheese, while the toast was slathered with strawberry jam.

"Thank you, Chelsea!" Marie cried, smiling graciously up at their cook.

"Mh, yuh, sanks," Mark said, mouth already stuffed with food.

Marie ate her breakfast in small bites, where Mark barely used silverware. Naturally, he was done first, and bounded upstairs to brush his teeth. Marie soon followed. They finished getting ready downstairs, where they put on their shoes (red and black sneakers for Mark and violet flats for Marie) and hopped in the back of one of the family's black stretch limos. School was only a mile away, but with the traffic in the city, it would still take awhile.

They left their street, which was basically a line of mansions, and turned onto the street that would take them almost all the way to school. After driving a couple blocks, Marie suddenly had a strange feeling.

_What in the world?_ she thought. There was something in the back of her mind that she was supposed to remember. But she just couldn't. She sighed. _You're too weak_, she told herself. _Of course you don't remember anything._ Looking out the window, she saw a familiar large house (though it had no comparison with her mansion). It was an old, Victorian-style home, with ivy climbing up the front of the house. She couldn't help but stare at it, as she always did. It had its own tower on one side. She'd always loved houses like that. It was elegant, with but a kind of old-world simplicity that none of her homes had. They were all new and too modern to have that kind of charm to them. As always, she wondered who lived inside the house. What an interesting person they must be…

-x-

"Miguel! Time for school!" came his mother's loud voice.

Miguel Benitez was already awake. He never slept much, which was why he usually had the same rings around his eyes that he had now. He sat up in his bed, and with one hand fished for his glasses that he had set on his bedside table. After putting them on, he stood up and crossed to one of the many windows in his room. He lived in the very house Marie had just been scrutinizing, and his room was in the very top of the tower. It was the smallest bedroom in the big house, but it did have window seats and enough room for his bed and desk – which were really all he needed. He spent all his time on the computer, anyway.

After picking out some clothes, Miguel shuffled into his room's adjoining bedroom and showered, then dressed. He wore pretty much the same thing he did every day: black pants and a striped long-sleeved shirt (today's was striped with blue and white). His dark hair was cropped close to his head, and his piercing tawny eyes peered out accusingly from behind his black plastic-rimmed glasses. His skin was an immaculate golden-brown without a blemish or even freckle in sight – showing his virtual aversion to the sunlight.

Miguel was an introspective, introverted sort of character. He never said what he was thinking, unless it was to point out the futility of something or to correct someone. He was rather cynical in that way, for he was certainly a pessimist. He kept to himself, preferring his own company to that of anyone else. Miguel was very intelligent and spent most of his time either studying, playing the violin, or on the computer. He had taught himself how to work with computers as soon as he had gotten one, and now he was fluent in the languages of CSS and HTML. He wasn't just a web-programming prodigy, though; he could also navigate his way quite well around the hard drives of computers and troubleshoot them when they weren't working. His father always said he had a bright future ahead of him at the Apple store, but then again, careers and money were all his father talked about anyway. Those topics bored Miguel.

With a sigh, Miguel gave his appearance one last glare and headed downstairs, where his mother was waiting. "Good morning, honey!" she exclaimed. "What would you like to eat today?"

Miguel shrugged.

"Your brother's having oatmeal. Do you want that too?"

Miguel gave another shrug of his shoulders. "I don't care."

A peal of laughter was heard from the kitchen. "Oopsie!"

"What's wrong, Tommy?" his mother asked, returning into the kitchen. Miguel followed behind her silently. Their mother gasped when she saw the state of the breakfast nook (which was the lower part of the tower). Tommy, Miguel's six-year-old little brother, had hurled oatmeal all over the room.

"_Tomas David Benitez!_" their mother screeched. "What have you _done_?"

"Isn't it obvious, Mommy?" Tommy asked innocently. "I put oatmeal everywhere!"

As their mother continued to stare at the walls in shock, Miguel finally spoke up: "I'm gonna go now."

"Aren't you hungry?" Tommy asked.

Miguel shook his head and left the kitchen, then got his backpack and shoes on in a hurry. He didn't want to be around when his mom started making anyone nearby clean up the mess.

His school was only about a half-mile away, but it was all uphill, which made it the most exercise Miguel received each day. He had lots of time to get to school, though. He had left his house early.

He walked fairly slow past most houses, but had to hurry past one. It was a big pink Tudor-style house a block uphill from his home. If he didn't get past it as fast as he could, he could be stuck walking to school with the girl who lived there. They had an English test today, and on test days she would follow him around as if his intelligence was contagious. Luckily, he made it past her house without seeing her today. Miguel heaved a sigh of relief as he glanced back at the glaring pink house.

-x-

"Wakey wakey!" came Pradie's voice, loud in Tiffany Preston's ear.

"Ahh!" Tiffany screeched, leaping up. When she saw her little sister standing there, her eyes grew wide. "Uggh! Pradie! Go away!"

"But you overslept!" Pradie said.

Tiffany's eyes shot to her clock. "AHHH! NO!" She jumped out of her pink bed and flung open her closet. Her eyes scanned over a sea of pink before she grabbed a few things.

_How could I oversleep?_ she asked herself woefully as she scrambled into her pink-tiled bathroom. _I was supposed to get all the answers for the English test from Miguel!_

Okay, she didn't have time to shower, but it wasn't like she smelled bad or anything, right? She'd just have to spray herself an extra time with her favorite perfume. She nearly threw her clothes on, then checked in the mirror just to see if they were on right. She wore a pink tank top, a white denim jacket with pink stitching, and a white miniskirt. After a shortened session of primping (only lasting a _little_ over five minutes) Tiffany ran out of her bathroom and slid her pink-toenailed feet inside her favorite white and pink platform flip-flops. She grabbed her backpack, in a light shade of (what else?) pink and flung it over her shoulders.

As already obvious, Tiffany was practically in love with the colors pink and white – especially pink. She had forced her parents (through a skilled tantrum) to paint their house pink when she was six and had been forcing them and everyone else to do whatever else she wanted since. She and her sisters Chanel and Pradie (a strange nickname for Prada, her sister's real name) had always lived comfortable (if not luxurious) lives. Their father worked often, and their mother had been a star at medical school, training to become a doctor, until Mr. Preston was making so much she gave up on it. After all, her husband made enough for her to ensconce herself in designer brands and other expensive trinkets – especially those of her three favorite brands, Chanel (for their suits), Tiffany (diamond necklaces, of course), and Prada (for their handbags). So that was what she named her first three children, and she loved telling people the stories of how they got their names (in actuality, she had four favorite brands, but only three children, so she neglected to tell others that she was yet to have a Burberry).

Tiffany looked almost completely like her mother, as did Chanel and Pradie. They all had curly strawberry blonde hair (though Ms. Preston dyed hers to be blonde-blonde), sky blue eyes, and freckles on their cheeks. Chanel kept her hair cut very short, Pradie's was very long, and Tiffany, as the middle child, also had hair midway down her back. She had her mother's upturned ski-jump of a nose and (what her mother called) "infamously" long legs, but where Ms. Preston was skeletally skinny, Tiffany was (again, what her mother called) "a bit chubby". Because of her mother's constant nagging at her to lose weight and virtually become a mini-Ms. Preston, Tiffany was on constant diets, though they never lasted long because she got bored of them and jealous of her greedy chocolate-eating friends when all she was stuck with was celery, which had too many strings anyway.

Tiffany had somewhat inherited her mother's personality, but they looked much more alike than they acted. Tiffany loved designer clothes. But while her mother was laid-back and usually relaxed (it might have been the champagne, though), Tiffany was rather high-strung. She had extreme emotions that seemed to change at the drop of a hat. She exuded an air of authority, and her stubbornness and willful determination helped get her what she wanted. If they didn't, she would always resort to an old-fashioned meltdown. One thing Tiffany knew was that she would always get her way, no matter how impossible it seemed. However, she also had attributes that didn't sound as negative: her loyalty, for example. She was hard to befriend, especially if you were on her 'hated' list, but once you had gained her trust she would fight for your side. Of course, it _was_ rather negative sounding that she had a 'hated' list at all. It was filled with those who had bothered her, wronged her, or those who she just didn't like. At the very top was Catharine Thomas, just because she annoyed her. Tiffany didn't much enjoy the company of those who didn't like pink. Tiffany wasn't the kindest of people, and she and her friends loved to pick on those who irked them. But to others, like Miguel Benitez, who could help her pass her tests, she was obsequious. She wasn't exactly a good student, so it was natural that missing Miguel had made her cranky that morning – or, at least, crankier than usual.

Tiffany was hungry, but she didn't want to eat any breakfast that morning. Her sisters were annoying, and her parents were worse. They were always arguing these days.

She passed through the kitchen, stomping by. "Going to school," she growled at the four others in the kitchen.

"Have something to eat, Tiffany," her father said.

"Paul, she obviously isn't hungry if she's not eating anything already," her mother told him. "You don't want her to blow up into a balloon, do you?"

"I'd rather have her be a healthy balloon than a dieting stick, Marissa."

"You _know_ I just started this diet, Paul. I can't believe how insensitive you are." As usual, her mother looked relaxed, detached from the conversation.

Tiffany left through the front door. "Tiffany, you get back here!" her father called. She just slammed the door after her. Gazing hopefully up the hill, she saw no sign of Miguel and sighed deeply. She wasn't late to school, just late to walk with him. She began to tread up the hill dejectedly, her feet already hurting.

_Why do they make these stupid hills in San Francisco?_ she asked herself angrily.

-x-

Far away (or possibly not far at all, you never can tell with dimensional overlap), in the Digital World, a small indigo Digimon ran from a larger gold one. The small Digimon appeared to be a strange mixture of fox and dragon. It had fur and fox-like white markings, so that its paws, tail, and snout were dipped in white and its underbelly was powdered with the same color. Its other vulpine characteristics were its pointed ears and its long, bushy tail. However, it had a dragon's face, with a wide muzzle, fangs sharper than a fox's, and reptilian nostrils. Sharp claws grew from all four of its paws and two small black wings rose from its shoulder blades. A large red ornament was embedded into its forehead, resembling some sort of triangle-shaped ruby. As this Digimon ran, its eyes were wide.

The Digimon that chased this one was a creature that resembled a golden lion cub. It had large grey claws and well-defined muscles in its lean, sinewy body. Its eyes were a bright blue and it had two rows of pearly, sharp fangs. A tuft of red fur grew from the top of its head and barely visible blue strands of static electricity bounced around it, crackling as it moved. The lion Digimon's tail was bent at a strange angle, almost like the jagged form of a lightning bolt. On its back, right between the shoulder blades, was a black symbol that looked almost like an upside down 'A'. Around its neck was a golden collar with symbols engraved onto it. Hanging from this was a green pendant that swung back and forth as the lion chased the small blue Digimon.

It was obvious that the larger one wasn't putting much effort in actually catching the smaller one; it looked as if it was only pursuing it for fun. The small Digimon didn't seem to be having much fun, though.

It turned its head around a bit to see the lion Digimon. "Leormon! Wait! It's me, Dorumon! Don't you know me?"

The lion Digimon, Leormon, only growled menacingly and seemed to run faster. "Of course I know you. That's how I know how tasty you are."

Dorumon frantically looked around, then spotted a tree. The Digimon jumped up into the branches, gasping for air. "Come on, Leormon, this isn't funny anymore!"

Leormon stopped, and Dorumon sighed with relief. "You shouldn't scare me like that! I didn't think you'd be much of the practical joke type, but – "

"This isn't a joke." Leormon's voice was deadly cold. "I stopped to point out how foolish you are. You don't think I can climb trees?"

Dorumon blinked. "Well, yes, I mean, no, I mean… I do think you can. I just want to know why you're acting like this!"

"Acting like what?"

"You're not being yourself! This whole, um, trying to kill me thing and everything? It's not how you usually act. Do I really need to remind you of that, though?"

Leormon growled. "This _is_ me being myself."

Dorumon frowned, still breathing hard. "Leormon, come on. We're old friends. I know you, and this isn't you. I mean, I guess this could be some kind of midlife crisis, but then again, you're not middle-aged yet. Maybe your hormones are acting up?"

Leormon growled even louder.

"Okay, okay, I get it, we don't have hormones. We have data. Is that acting up then?"

Leormon roared, making Dorumon jump. "I told you not to do that! It scares me so much!"

Leormon bent low to the ground, then sprang up at Dorumon. The small Digimon moved just in time, plummeting back down to the ground with a thud. "Ow! That wasn't very nice, Leormon!"

The lion, up in the tree, roared again, then leapt down at Dorumon, claws extended. The little Digimon rolled out of the way, then jumped up and began to run again. "I changed my mind! Compared to that, running _is_ fun!"

-x-

It was no coincidence that Catharine Thomas, Mark Ardeaux, Marie Ardeaux, Miguel Benitez, and Tiffany Preston were all freshmen at Golden Gate High School (student population 3000) in San Francisco. It also was no coincidence that they were all, in some way, related. Mark and Marie were the easy ones, as twins. Tiffany had always been in awe of the Ardeaux family, because although the Prestons were wealthy, they weren't _that_ wealthy. Miguel was always trying to avoid Tiffany, who he regarded as an annoying insect buzzing in his ear. And Cat and Tiffany were mortal enemies. In some way, Tiffany was in the middle of them all, though she was either disliked by them (Cat and Miguel) or unknown to them (the twins). It was also no coincidence that they all received a note from the office at about 8:17 while they were in first period. There were, really, no coincidences.

The note simply said: "Come to the computer lab at once. You will be excused from class."

The thought of being excused from class motivated everyone but Marie and Miguel. Marie went because it told her to, and Miguel loved the computer lab anyway.

They all showed up at about the same time, though Cat was first and Marie second.

"Marie!" Mark exclaimed, once he entered into the lab, the third person. "You got one too?"

Marie nodded, biting her lip. "I hope we're not in trouble."

"Well, unless the principal moved her office to the computer lab – which she didn't, cause I had to go see her yesterday – we're safe."

Tiffany, the next to show up, shot the twins what she considered her most winning smile when she saw them, but they didn't seem to notice. Sticking her lip out in an exaggerated pout, she looked around the computer lab to see who else was there. She rolled her eyes at Cat. "Ugh. I have to be stuck in a room with _you_?"

Cat shrugged. "You are usually, aren't you? I mean, we have Biology and Gym together."

Tiffany sighed, exasperated. "Look, I'm not having a good day. I'm going to fail my English test. Can you please just try and not ruin my day even more?"

Cat tilted her head, amused. "You have _good_ days now?"

Tiffany opened her mouth angrily, but then Miguel walked in, the last one to arrive. Her eyes lit up. "Miguel!"

The quiet boy, at seeing Tiffany, groaned inwardly. _Just my luck_, he thought.

"Do you know what we were supposed to study for English? I'm sure you do, as always, cause you're just so _smart_!"

Cat smiled, glad Tiffany's attention was away from her. She surveyed the room, checking yet again for anyone who might strangely pop out from behind something. "This is so weird," she said.

Mark flopped down in a chair, pulling the one next to it out for Marie. "It's cool that we get to miss class and everything, but what are we supposed to be doing here?"

"Maybe we were picked to lead our school in the National Computer Contest!" Cat suggested excitedly.

Tiffany snorted. "Why would they pick you? You're not smart."

Cat stuck her tongue out at Tiffany. "You're the one getting all the English answers from him," she said. She sent Miguel a small smile. "Sorry, uh, I don't know your name."

He stared straight at her, but didn't say a word. Cat blinked. "Um, okay…"

"Ugh, how immature! I can't believe you just _stuck your tongue out_ at me. Some people are just like little kids!" Tiffany sniffed.

"I'm glad you're not into catfights like them," Mark hissed at Marie, though it was loud enough for everyone else to hear.

Marie turned pink. "Mark!"

Tiffany took a deep breath. "This is not a _catfight_. I am above catfights! And I am above her level! She is the one who was sticking her tongue out at me!"

Cat, on the other hand, grinned. "That's so funny you should say that! 'Catfight', I mean. That's my name!"

Mark nodded slowly. "Catfight?"

"Um, no! Cat!"

"Oh. Okay. Right."

Marie elbowed him, then looked at Cat. "I apologize for Mark… What he means to say is that it's very nice to meet you, Cat!"

"Um, thanks. You too."

"She's Marie. I'm Mark. We're twins," Mark informed Cat lazily.

It took a moment for Cat to catch on. "You mean… You two are Mark and Marie Ardeaux?"

Marie nodded.

"Wow! I've heard of you!"

Tiffany rolled her eyes. "Of _course_ you've heard of them. _Everyone_ has heard of them." She smiled at the twins. "I'm Tiffany! I always read about you in magazines. Oh, I love seeing pictures of your houses, by the way! The villa in Italy is amazing!"

Marie smiled and nodded. Mark sighed and crossed his arms, proud look on his face. "Yeah, it's pretty nice. It gets weird having all these reporters and photographers in your house, though. They come to shoot all our houses, y'know?"

Tiffany nodded. "Oh, I know! I always see your picture at the end, too!"

"They always want to take a picture of us at the end. Guess it's cause I'm just so good looking!" Mark said with a grin.

"Well, obviously!" Tiffany agreed, giggling.

Now Cat was the one to roll her eyes. "Here she goes again," she muttered. She glanced at Miguel. "Sorry, but your girlfriend has moved onto someone new already."

He smirked a tiny bit. "Hopefully she never comes back."

Cat grinned. "You _do_ talk!"

Miguel shrugged, smirk sliding off his face.

"What's your name?"

"Miguel. Miguel Benitez."

"Hey… aren't you that kid who won that computer thingy?" Cat asked, eyes wide.

He nodded.

"Wow! You must be real good with computers, then, huh?"

He nodded again, though inwardly was correcting her grammar.

"Will you show me something you can do on the computer but nobody else knows how to do?" she inquired.

He hesitated, then nodded. "Pick a computer."

Cat closed one eye. "Hmm… That one!" She pointed at a random computer, to the left of Mark. They headed over to it, and Miguel sat down in the chair.

"It's just some hacking trick I somehow came across. I've never met anyone else who knows how to do it. It's not that complicated, but it's never worked for anyone else, even when I try and walk them through it. I guess I've never been there in person to see what they're doing wrong."

Cat blinked, surprised. Now he was talking a lot! "So what's hacking?"

He looked up at her, eyes wide. "Are you serious?"

Cat laughed nervously. "Uh, of course not! Haha… I _so_ know what hacking is!"

He nodded, then looked back down at the computer. "So I'll open up a browser window and go on the Internet, see?"

She nodded. That much she understood, at least.

"What are you guys doing?" Mark asked, leaning over.

"Hacking!" Cat announced brightly.

"Now, pick a website you want me to hack into," Miguel said.

"Um… Hey, what's that?" Cat asked. She pointed to a window that had just popped up. It had a bunch of dancing animal-things and said in big, bold letters: "CLICK MEEE!"

Miguel sighed. "It's just a dumb popup." He scrolled the mouse over to close the window, but Cat knocked his hand off it.

"But it wants us to click it, right? We have to do what it says or else we'll get in trouble! Maybe this is a test for our computer literacy, and if we don't click on it then we'll all fail school!"

"No, it's just a popup. They all say to click them – "

"Ugh, you're so dumb, Cat," Tiffany said, coming over. "Don't you even _have_ the internet? Or are you too poor?"

Cat ignored her, though she resented the fact that Tiffany had figured out she didn't have any Internet connection at her house, and clicked the popup link. The cartoon animals smiled, then they were redirected to another site, all in Japanese and with a big image on it. The image resembled a big steel door, but it had a black symbol on it that looked almost like a V with a line through it. "Uh… Can anyone read this language thing?"

"That thing looks like the symbol for anarchy," Mark said. "Only upside down, and with no circle, and… okay, different."

"Not the symbol in the picture," Cat said. "The writing below!"

"That's Japanese," Marie identified. "Mark and I can speak it, but we can't read it."

"Oh, yeah! Don't you have a house in Japan?" Tiffany gushed. "That one is so nice!"

Mark grinned. "Yeah, it is… It's near Tokyo. It has great views of Mount Sinai."

Marie coughed. "Fuji."

"Fuji, of course!"

"Here, hack into this one," Cat said. "I mean, we're at it already, right? We have to do it quickly before anyone comes in and finds us playing on the computer."

Miguel pressed a few buttons at once and brought up a text box, then typed in a confusing series of characters faster than Cat thought she could _talk_. When he had written about seven lines of what looked to everyone else like mumbo-jumbo computer code, he said, "And now we press enter."

Cat jumped up in the air. "Ooh! Can I do it?"

Miguel nodded. "Go ahead. Just remember to press it only once."

"So once you hack into this, what happens?" Mark asked.

"You'll see," Miguel said.

Cat pressed enter. The text box vanished, and the webpage on the screen started to move back and forth. "That's so cool! So that's what hacking is?" Cat asked.

Miguel shook his head. "No… No, this shouldn't be happening," he said. He tried to close the webpage, but the mouse wouldn't move. "It's frozen," he said. He pressed random keys, trying to shut down the computer, but nothing worked. Suddenly, the image of the steel door began to change. The door began slowly to move apart, separating the upside-down 'A' symbol on the front of it. Where the door opened, light came out.

"Miguel! What's going on?" Tiffany shrieked.

"I… I don't know," he said, still pressing buttons. "Nothing's working. I'm going to have to unplug it."

Before he could reach down and unplug the computer, a chiming sound was heard from the computer. The door finished opening, leaving a rectangle of light shining from the computer. The light poured out across the room of the computer lab and across all five of their astonished faces.

And then the light surrounded them and pulled them into the computer, through the door, all the way into another world.

**End of Chapter One: Meet the Hackers**_  
_

_Yay! Oh, by the way, the twins' part was longer than anyone else's because there are two of them. If that needed explaining. xD_

_Anyway, did you like it? Hate it? Well, whatever… Just review, please! I know it's short so far, and not really into the whole Digimon part yet, but yeah. It's just an introduction. Sorry if I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about with the hacking thing… I don't know very much about hacking, just a little bit. x3 I hope to have the next chapter up soon. If I get reviews, they inspire me to write even quicker. ;D _


	2. A Warm Welcome

**Digimon Hackers**

Ah, look. I updated pretty soon! xD That's kind of against my style but whatever. I just wanted to write another chapter right away, and it didn't take me long to do. So that's good.

Also, the Digidestined will start to get their Digimon starting… in this chapter! I'm sorry if you don't like the Digimon I've picked. And I really know nothing of Dorumon in the X-Antibody thingy (which it talks about a little on Wikipedia, aka my best friend while finding Digimon partners for all the characters). I just liked that he had three Digivolution lines. This will come up later in the fic, but for now he's just Dorumon, and for some reason he is one of the only Digimon unaffected by the virus. But um you'll learn more about that in the next chapter (which it already basically written but needs some serious editing).

This was a long author's note thingy. But, uhh, I just wanted to let you guys know that. Anywho, please read and review! I appreciate reviews and feedback a lot. They help motivate me to write more, too. ;D

**Chapter Two**

**A Warm Welcome**

The next thing they knew, they were all in a big pile in a shallow part of a lake.

"Um, where are we?" Cat asked, after taking a moment for everything to sink in.

Tiffany screamed. Her mouth was right next to Mark's ears, unfortunately for him. "Ah! Shut up!" Mark groaned. "Marie, are you okay?"

"Yep, perfectly fine!" Marie said, though her voice was rather strained.

"Okay, who's on top of Marie?" Mark demanded. "Is it you, Mr. Hacker person? It better not be you!"

"Oh yeah! That's what happened!" Cat exclaimed. "You were hacking that thingy and… the door opened… and… then… and…"

There was a silence.

"Um, you don't think we're… _in_ the computer, right?"

"Of course not. Ugh, you're so dumb, Cat. People don't just go _inside_ of computers," Tiffany scoffed.

"Well, what other explanation is there?" Cat retorted.

"There has to be a logical explanation," Miguel said. "I agree with Tiffany. We can't be inside a computer. For one thing, if we were, it would be impossible for water to exist. Water breaks computers."

Tiffany shrieked. "WATER! My outfit! Everyone, get _off_!"

"Yeah, seriously? We need to get out of this stupid pile thing like really fast," Mark said. "My sister's partly at the bottom, and she's not very strong, okay? Who's on top?"

"I don't think anyone is," Cat said. "We're kind of… all… together… and… um, maybe when we went through the computer, it put us all into one! Is that possible, Miguel?"

He shook his head. "Besides, we're not in a computer."

"Where else could we be?"

"Can we just get out of the _lake_?" Tiffany wailed.

"Yeah, come on, guys," Mark said. "I'm serious, Marie has a weak body."

"I'm fine! Don't worry about me, Mark!" Marie assured him.

"Oh! Okay! Let's move!" Cat said. "We're crushing her! Miguel, I think your feet are somehow on top of my head, right? Maybe if you do some kind of reverse backflip, we can all get untangled?"

With Cat's confusing leadership, everyone eventually untangled themselves. Wet and bedraggled, they all headed for land. Tiffany collapsed on the ground, mourning her outfit. Mark made Marie sit down, too, though she insisted she was all right. Miguel and Cat wandered off a bit, to see where they were – well, Miguel wandered off, and Cat chased after him.

"Does this look familiar at all to you?" Cat asked. "So there's like a lake in the middle of a forest. Okay. Um… could this be… Yosemite?"

Miguel shook his head. "I've never been there, but it's too far away to be possible. We must have fallen out the window, or something, and fallen in a lake in some inner courtyard of the school's."

Cat looked around. "Um, I don't think our school has one of those. See? No walls, or anything."

He didn't say anything.

She sighed. "We should go back to where the others are. It's not good to split up, especially if we don't know where we are."

He snorted. "What are you, my mother? You go back." He pointed to a hill a little in the distance. "I'm going up there. Maybe I'll be able to see better."

Cat shook her head. "No way! It'd be even worse if you were alone. No, I'll come with you. I'd like to see the view too!"

Miguel said nothing for a moment, then started to walk towards the hill.

Back at the lakeshore, Tiffany was sobbing. "My whole outfit is _ruined_!" she lamented. "Oh, my mom is going to _kill_ me…"

"Calm down, it's just an outfit," Mark said. "Clothes are cheap."

"How can you say that? You just got your pants all ruined too! Do you even know how expensive those pants are?"

Mark shrugged. "No. They're just jeans, though. They can't be that expensive, right?"

Tiffany turned to Marie. "You're a girl. You must know how much these clothes cost."

Marie smiled apologetically, a little amused at Tiffany's comment. "I'm sorry, but I don't."

Tiffany sighed, swiping at her mascara-drenched cheeks. "Well, they're _really_ expensive. How is my makeup? Is it all running? Ugh, I must look _terrible_."

Mark nodded, but Marie elbowed him. "No, not at all. I wouldn't have guessed you'd just fallen in a lake."

The words seemed to startle everyone, especially the twins, who weren't as preoccupied as Tiffany was right now. Mark stood up, glancing around. "Woah," he said. "Wait, what _is_ this place?"

"You don't recognize it, Mark?" Marie asked. "It's not… anywhere nearby?"

He shook his head, a bewildered expression on his face. "We definitely don't have a forest in our school."

"Then… then where could we be?" Marie asked quietly.

"I dunno," Mark said with a shrug.

"I thought you would know," Marie said. "I knew I wouldn't, but I thought you would." She hesitated, frowning. "Did… did you hear that?"

Tiffany was still sniffling to herself, though she wasn't crying anymore. Marie had told her she didn't look ugly, and she could always get her clothes dry-cleaned, after all…

Mark glared at Tiffany. "Shh," he said. She covered her mouth and nose with her hands to try and cover up the sound. Mark shook his head again. "No, I don't hear anything."

Marie shrugged. "I must have just been hearing things, then. Sorry…"

All of a sudden, there was a crash heard by all of them in the forest behind them. They gasped, and Mark grabbed Marie's arm and pulled her up and back towards the lake. There was the sound of growling, and the quick pattering of running. Then, from out of the forest, came a shot of light purple. It was a strange creature that they didn't recognize: Dorumon. His eyes were wide with fear as he ran towards them, then leapt at Marie. Mark tried to block him, but the Digimon was too fast. Marie closed her eyes, holding out her arms as if to protect herself… But she felt something land on the back of her arms, and she opened her eyes to see it. The creature stared up at her, panting from running so much. Its claws had thoughtfully been retracted so as to not hurt her. Marie slowly flipped over her arms so she was holding the Digimon.

"Marie, get away from that thing!" Mark yelled.

"No, it's fine! He's not dangerous," she said.

"How do you know that? Did it _tell_ you that?" Mark spat.

"No, but I can tell _you_ that. I'm not dangerous," Dorumon huffed. "Not in this form, anyway."

Mark, Marie, and Tiffany all screamed.

Dorumon's ears flattened to the back of his head. "Sorry," he said. "No time to explain now!"

"Wh-why not?" Marie stammered.

"Because!" Dorumon pointed with his tail at the forest where he had come from. At that very second, Leormon flew out of it, then came to a stop in front of them. He glared at them, fangs exposed.

Tiffany could only stare at it, frozen with fright. Mark stepped in front of Marie protectively. "What is that thing?"

"That's Leormon," Dorumon said. "He's a good friend of mine, but right now he's trying to eat me. I'm not exactly sure why. None of the Digimon are being themselves around here."

"Digimon?" Mark said. "Those aren't real!" Several years ago, there had been sightings of monsters all around the world. They had even held people captive. But later a huge movie company admitted it was all a publicity stunt for their movie, called _Digimon_. The movie turned out to be terrible, with tons of bad acting and weird digital effects. The Digimon were played by people dressed up in what looked like cheap Halloween costumes. And yet they made another movie (_Digimon 2_) a few years later, when weird black towers started to appear everywhere, along with the Digimon. Again, the company claimed it was all for publicity and the monsters weren't real. Mark had been excited when he was in fourth grade because he had seen one of the Digimon. Everyone had. It was a huge sea creature that was trying to attack the Golden Gate Bridge. But when he found out that it was just for the sequel of _Digimon_, a movie that had come out when he was about six, he didn't think seeing the Digimon was cool anymore.

"Well, obviously we are, don't you think?" Dorumon said.

"Let the little rat go," Leormon growled. "I don't know who you are, but you are not Digimon. If you let him go, I will not harm you."

"You heard him! Let it go!" Mark told his sister.

"But… what happens to him if we let him go?" Marie asked, looking down at Dorumon. "We can't let him get eaten!"

"We can't let ourselves get eaten, either! Come on, Marie!"

Dorumon cringed. "It's okay," he panted. "I've been running before. I can keep running now. I was just supposed to find you… Though there should be two more of you."

"You mean… Cat and that other boy?" Marie asked.

"Put Dorumon down," Leormon said. "This is your last warning. If you do not put him down, I will be forced to go through you to get to him."

"Marie!" Mark cried. He reached for Dorumon, but she held the Digimon close to her and turned away. Mark saw Dorumon's scared face, and knew Marie would never let him go. Mark sighed. "Fine," he said. "Then we're not going down without a fight!"

"Um, I love your new attitude towards not letting me get eaten and all," Dorumon said. "But _you_ can't fight a Digimon! Especially this one. He's really strong for a Rookie! Sometimes he fights Champion-level Digimon and still wins!"

"I have no idea what that means, but aren't you a Digimon?" Mark demanded. "Can't you fight?"

Dorumon shook his head. "I'm not strong enough, plus he's my friend! That's why I've been running!"

"Then… let's run!" Mark said, pulling Marie and running away as fast as they could. He was happy to hear that Leormon wasn't following them, but Marie looked back.

"Mark!" she cried. "Tiffany's still there!"

Mark stopped running and looked towards Tiffany. She was being circled by Leormon. She sat there, shaking, too scared to move or say anything.

"Tiffany!" he called. "Come on!"

She didn't even look like she heard him. Marie slipped out of Mark's grip, shoving Dorumon into his arms, and went running back to Tiffany. "Tiffany!"

Leormon looked up at Marie with a grin. "You know, you look nearly as tasty as Dorumon." He leapt into the air and tackled her to the ground, holding her arms and legs down with his large paws. "I'll eat you first, since you were the one who wouldn't give me Dorumon to eat!"

Marie closed her eyes, trembling. Suddenly, Leormon stumbled off of her, roaring with pain. Marie opened her eyes and scrambled up, then looked to see Mark with a handful of rocks in his grasp. Dorumon stood by his feet.

Leormon growled, glancing at the small wound on his side. "That hurt a bit."

"Good! I wasn't the best pitcher on my team for nothing!" Mark said. "And that was just a warm-up!"

-x-

"Wow! You can see all around from up here!" Cat exclaimed happily. "Well, um, kind of. The whole forest, anyway. Hey, look! There's the lake! Do you see the rest of them?"

Miguel frowned. "What… what _is_ that thing?"

Cat blinked. "Hmm? Where?"

He pointed at the lakeshore. Cat squinted – she had always been a little bit nearsighted – and saw he was pointing at a few figures. She could make out three people, obviously Mark, Marie, and Tiffany, but what was that standing by Mark? And what was that big animal near Marie and Tiffany?

"That doesn't look good!" Cat squeaked. "We have to help them!" She ran back the way they had come, racing down the hill. Miguel, a little more reluctant, followed her, but not as quickly. He didn't think he could _ever_ run as fast as she was going.

When Cat ran up behind Mark, she tried to stop but slipped on the sand of the lake's small beach. "Woah!" she cried, falling into Mark and knocking him over. Mark fell with a crash, dropping all the rocks he had gathered. Dorumon looked at them, eyes wide.

"Don't seem so confident now, do you?" Leormon snorted, then padded closer to Cat and Mark slowly, jagged tail flicking to and fro agitatedly.

Mark jumped up. "Ugh," he said. "Thanks a lot."

"Sorry!" Cat said, also scrambling up.

"So I'm supposed to protect you now too?" Mark sighed as Leormon came closer.

"What? No, of course not!" Cat said, surprised. "Why would you have to?"

"I've been here protecting these two while you and the other kid run around in the forest together! You're a girl. That means I'm going to have to protect you."

Cat glared at him. "You know, I almost regret running up here to save you now."

He laughed. "You, save _me_?"

"What, is that too much to get through your cocky guy-ego brain?"

Miguel finally showed up, to come and stand behind the arguing two. "What's going on?"

Leormon finally stopped walking. "I'm going to make you pay for your stupid baseball stunts," he said. "It's not even a real sport! Leo Claw!" He crouched down and sprang at Mark, but Cat was too quick. She jumped in front of the Digimon's path, eyes shut and hands in fists.

Leormon, surprised, only knocked Cat to the ground. His claws had been aimed for Mark's head, but Cat was shorter and so they missed entirely, instead lacerating the ground behind her.

Everyone stared at Cat, eyes wide – especially Mark. She opened her eyes and looked up at Leormon. Her determined brown eyes met his light blue ones, and something seemed to change in his. "C-Cat," he said, then his eyes closed and he fell over, off of her. Cat sat up, and the others crowded around, even Tiffany, who could move again.

Dorumon climbed over Mark to sit next to the unconscious Leormon. "Well, guess he recognized you," he said.

Cat stared at Leormon, speechless.

Dorumon sighed. "I guess I should explain. Leormon is your partner. He has been waiting for you for a very long time."

Cat shook her head. "I don't understand… Partner? And what happened to him? And what is he? And where are we?"

Dorumon rubbed his head. "Which question do you want me to answer? We should probably just get out of here before any really mean Digimon come along. My guess is that Leormon stopped his weird rampage thing once he realized you were his human partner, but I doubt any others will be like that. Especially cause you can only have one partner. I was sent by Gennai to get all of you, and so I should take you back to a safe place now!"

"What do we do with him? Le-or-mon?" Cat asked, trying out the name.

"Just leave him," Mark said, angrily. "He tried to kill us."

"I don't think he knew what he was doing. I'm not sure what was going on with him, but he's not usually like this. Gennai will have an explanation, but for now, we should – oh? Um… I wonder what this is…" Dorumon stopped in mid-sentence as he noticed the black symbol on Leormon's back. "This isn't usually here… I don't know what this is."

"That's the same symbol on the webpage I hacked into," Miguel said.

"How… strange," Dorumon said. "I don't know how this got here."

Cat leaned over and touched the symbol on Leormon's back gingerly – she didn't know why she did, but she felt like she had to. As she did, darkness shot out of the symbol and flew up in the air, leaving Leormon's back normal again. The darkness in the air finally turned into tiny pixels and floated away.

"Looks like you got rid of it," Dorumon said.

Suddenly, Leormon started glowing, making them jump. He shrunk until he was smaller than Dorumon, then the glowing subsided. In Leormon's place was a smaller Digimon, the same fur color, but with only a head covered in a large frill and a long tail. Lying next to him was a small metallic green device that looked like a cell phone. Cat picked it up, but before she had a chance to examine it further, the small Digimon began to move. She shoved the cell phone in her pocket without a second thought. The Digimon's ears twitched and he opened his golden eyes tiredly. "Cat?" he said again.

"Um, yes?" Cat replied, completely confused.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Frimon, Leormon's In-Training form. Thank you for getting rid of it… I'm sorry about that… I couldn't control myself. I can't explain it, but it seemed like I was just watching while I was chasing you… I'm very sorry… I hope I didn't hurt any of you."

"I think we're all okay," Cat said. "And, um, if you couldn't control it, then I guess we can't be mad at you or anything. I actually have no idea what's going on."

"That's good… That you're okay, I mean." Frimon closed his eyes. "Sorry, I'm so tired… It's… very nice to meet you, Cat." He didn't say anymore, and it seemed he had fallen asleep. Cat picked him up and stood up, cradling the little lion Digimon in her arms. "We need to get out of here!" she said. "Like, um, you said, there could be more dangerous, um, what did you call them? Digimon? Hey, I remember that movie! Anyway, we need to get somewhere safe."

"Are you really taking that thing with us?" Mark asked.

"I saved you from him, didn't I?" Cat asked, sticking her tongue out at Mark. "That means that you don't need to protect girls, see? Girls can protect themselves good! And I saved you, so that was a girl protecting a guy. Seeee, Mr. Sexist?"

"Whatever," Mark said, face red. "But we can't take it with us."

"Mark, you heard what he said. He didn't mean to try and kill us," Marie said. "Maybe that thing on him was making him act like that."

Tiffany gave a deep sigh and stood up. "Can we get going, please? Maybe this safe place has a nice warm bubblebath I can take. Oh, and a hair dryer… And a store, so I can buy some new clothes. These are absolutely _ruined_."

Cat gave her an odd look. "It's just water, maybe a little mud. It'll come out in the washing machine. Have you never washed clothes before?"

Tiffany crossed her arms. "No, as a matter of fact, I haven't. We have a _maid_ for those kinds of things. I don't have time to be washing my clothes like some kind of working-class scum."

Marie sneezed. Dorumon, heading over to her, jumped into her arms. "Are you cold? My coat's pretty warm. And it's warm where we're going."

Cat made a face at Tiffany. "At least I'm _useful_, unlike some snobby pretentious girls we all know."

"Catfight, Tiff! Stop your catfight! Marie might be sick. We have to get her to the safe place, whatever that is, before she gets a bad cold."

"I'm fine, really!" Marie said.

"Did you just call me Tiff?" Tiffany demanded.

"Okay, everyone! Let's go to the safe place!" Dorumon exclaimed. "Now, I'll tell you which way to turn, and you go that way! It'll be like a game! Go straight!"

Marie took the lead, since she was holding Dorumon. Mark hurried to walk next to her, and Tiffany came next. Cat, not wanting to walk next to Tiffany, waited for Miguel, who was lagging behind. When he noticed her, he said, "I'd prefer to walk alone."

She shrugged and began walking someplace in between Tiffany and Miguel, still carrying the sleeping Frimon in her arms.

-x-

They had walked for awhile before they reached what Dorumon called the safe place. It was already afternoon when they got there.

"This is it!" Dorumon announced. He jumped down from Marie's arms and made his way to a large tree. After using what sounded like some kind of secret knock on it, the tree bark opened up, revealing a spiral staircase inside it.

"Um, what is this place?" Cat asked.

"You want us to go up _that_?" Tiffany asked, disgusted.

"No, we have to go down the staircase now. Up leads to the lookout post. Down is where the actual safe place is," Dorumon said.

"I'll go first," Mark said. "Marie, you come after me. Be careful, okay? It looks dark down there. We'll go slow so we don't fall."

Marie nodded, and they all began to go down the stairs. After they were all through, the tree closed up again, leaving them in complete darkness.

Tiffany gulped. "Does anyone else have, like, a crippling fear of the dark?"

Nobody said anything, until Marie admitted, "Yes."

Miguel didn't feel like saying he was afraid of the dark too. Then again, he didn't feel like saying much, ever.

"How much longer, Dorumon?" Mark asked. "Even I'm getting a little spooked by this darkness, and I'm not afraid of anything."

"Not much longer," said Dorumon.

He was right: soon the stairs ended and they were standing on flat ground. "Light, please?" Tiffany begged.

Dorumon evidently gave the same secret knock on the reverse side of the tree, because the bark there also slid open and light poured in. It hurt their eyes a bit, but also relieved them. They stepped out of the tree into a large fluorescently-lit room. There were no windows. The room had a few doors leading to other chambers, but in this one were three couches centered around a huge TV, a kitchen area with a stove, fridge, toaster, microwave, and sink, and a large dining table.

"Woah! Is this it?" Mark gasped. "This is pretty cool for, like, an underground lair or whatever."

"Yeah, really," Cat said. "Where are the medieval torture machines?"

"I keep those in the attic," came a voice.

They looked around, but didn't see anyone. Finally, a little old man popped out from behind a couch. "Hello!"

"Um, hi," Cat said.

"That was kinda weird," Mark said. "Is he some crazy guy?"

"That's Gennai!" said Dorumon. "Gennai, I brought them here, just like you said."

"Thank you," Gennai said. He hobbled over to them. He was very small, with an interesting hairstyle and outfit. "And no, I am not crazy. Just because I am a weird-looking old man, you think I am crazy? Hmph! If I was able to keep my old design, meaning my young design, you wouldn't think that!"

"He looks like one of the guys who stands on street corners and just stares at people," Mark said. "And then people give him money for just wearing weird stuff?"

"How rude!" Gennai huffed indignantly. "And here I am, about to give you a nice place to stay, with warm beds and hot showers and washing machines!"

"Um, those all sound very nice, sir. But we won't be here for very long. I'd like to get back as soon as possible, cause I have Gym class last period and we're playing basketball…" Cat hinted.

"Oh, Mr. Gennai, can we _please_ stay until at least 3? I have Gym class last period, and we're playing _basketball_," Tiffany whined.

"I'm afraid you'll be staying here a lot longer than that," Gennai said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mark demanded. "Are you trying to kidnap us?"

"People will know we're missing!" Tiffany said, changing her mind about wanting to stay. "These are Mark and Marie _Ardeaux_. And I'm Tiffany Preston! And that's Miguel Benitez! We're really important."

"Nice to meet you all," Gennai said. "And who are you?" he asked Cat. "Aren't you important?"

Tiffany shook her head, answering for Cat. "No, she's not. Her dad's a journalist or something. And she doesn't even _have_ a mom. She's a really common kind of person."

"Ah, you have already found your partner?" Gennai asked Cat. "Hmm. Is that the same Frimon who, with his friend Dorimon, raided my cookie jar a few years ago?"

Dorumon looked away. "Aw, come on, we were just In-Training Digimon then."

"So?"

"So now we'd raid the whole fridge!"

"That's true. What did you say your name was?" Gennai asked, turning his attention back to Cat.

"I'm Cat…"

"Well, Cat, you seem to be the most important one here, despite what what's-her-face says. You have already found your partner!"

Tiffany crossed her arms. "Hmmph!"

"Excuse, me, sir," Marie finally piped up. "You said we will be here for a long time, if I'm not mistaken. Why?"

Gennai sighed. "I guess I should start explaining, hmm?"

Mark, Cat, and Tiffany nodded. Miguel wasn't paying attention, instead surveying the room. Marie shrugged a little bit, as if to indicate politely that it was up to him.

"The thing is," Gennai said, "you're dripping water all over my floor."

"Oh! We're so sorry!" Marie apologized. "What should we do?"

"Before you ruin my hardwood floor and catch pneumonia, you had better put on some warm clothes."

"Probably true, but we don't have any," Mark said.

"Don't worry. There is a large wardrobe filled with clothes in the third bedroom. Dorumon, will you show them?"

Dorumon nodded, and took off towards one of the doors. Tiffany ran after the little Digimon with energy never before shown in Gym class. Cat and Gennai were the only ones still standing in the main room after the others went through one of the doors into another hallway.

"I'm sorry, Gennai, but… I just have a thousand questions," Cat said. "I guess the others don't care as much about knowing, well, exactly where we are, and what's going on, but I've always been very curious about everything. My dad says it'll be my downfall. Curiosity killed the Cat, is his favorite saying."

"Curiosity is natural," said Gennai. "If you weren't curious, then how would you have ended up here in the first place?"

Cat wasn't exactly sure what he meant by this, but other things were more important. "Where is _here_, exactly?"

"I would tell you, Cat, but… I'm a bit tired. I'd prefer to tell you all at once, if that's possible. That way, I won't forget what I already said and say it all over again."

"Um, okay. But… can you just answer one little question?"

"I suppose."

"What is Frimon? Or Leormon, or… whatever his name is. And how can he change like that? And why was he attacking us earlier? And why is he unconscious now? And will he be okay? What should I do? Should I do anything so he can heal, or wake up, or something?"

Gennai chuckled. "That's not one little question," he said. "Which is most important to you right now?"

Cat looked down at the little Digimon sleeping in her arms. "The last one."

Gennai thought for a moment. "Well, the best thing to do is just to let him sleep. He's tired. When he wakes up, he should have a little bit of food. He'll be fine once he's regained his energy."

"Okay!" Cat said. "Thanks, Gennai! I'll try and be as patient as I can!" She headed off for the door the others had gone in.

Once she was inside the hallway, Cat glanced around. There were three rooms on the right side of the hallway, and as she walked by them, she saw that two were bedrooms and one in the middle was a bathroom. She nearly crashed into Tiffany, who had bundles of clothes in her arms. "Watch out!" Tiffany ordered.

Cat ignored her, then poked her head in the room Tiffany had come out of. It was small, but cozy. It had two bunk beds on either wall and a wardrobe in between. The wardrobe was strewn open and clothes were thrown everywhere. Mark and Marie were pawing through it now, and Miguel lingered behind them, uninterested.

"Are the clothes as weird as the ones he's wearing?" Cat asked.

"I'm not sure," Mark replied. "Tiffany basically took everything. At least there's a washing machine here, right? And Cat, you know how to wash clothes?"

"Um, yeah. Don't you?"

"Nope."

"Really? What about you guys?" Cat asked Marie and Miguel. They both shook their heads. "Wow! Well, I can teach you all, if you want to learn! It's really easy."

"Yeah, that sounds fun," Mark snorted.

"Mark! We'd love to learn," Marie said, turning around and shooting Cat a smile. "It'll be good practice for when we're independent. Things like that are really important."

"When I'm independent, I'll just hire a maid," Mark said, shrugging.

Cat smirked. "Now there's a Tiffany idea!"

Once they had all picked out some clothes (mostly unisex brown pants and white shirt) and taken their turns in the bathroom to change, they returned into the main room, where Gennai was waiting. "I guess I should get some new clothes," he said. "You're all wearing the same thing! Except you," he said, pointing at Tiffany. She had grabbed the only pink shirt in the wardrobe. "I accidentally turned a white shirt pink when I washed it with my red underwear."

Tiffany turned pale. "Wonderful."

"Anyway, the laundry room is just through the middle door. I've already started it and put the soap in, so you can just throw your clothes in there. Just remember to leave all reds for the next load, okay? We don't want all your clothes to end up pink!"

Tiffany decided she didn't like Gennai very much.

They all went through the door and tossed their clothes into the washing machine, which was still filling up with water. All their objectionably colored clothes were set on top of the dryer next to the washer. Cat closed the lid to the washing machine. "Well, um, that's all we have to do now."

"That is easy!" Marie said. "Oh, but he said he started it already… Well, I'm sure it's still almost as simple as that! Look, Mark, we can almost wash clothes by ourselves!"

Mark merely grunted.

They all filed back into the main room and sat on the couches. Marie, Mark, and Tiffany sat on one couch, while Cat and Miguel sat on another. Cat still held Frimon in her arms, and Dorumon climbed up to sit on the third couch with Gennai.

"Okay, I can't wait any longer," Cat said. "Please tell us everything?"

"I'll try my best," Gennai said. "But you might not find it very believable."

**End of Chapter Two: A Warm Welcome**

_Next chapter will explain basically everything. I hope to have it up soon, so please review and tell me what you think!_


	3. Gennai's Story

**Digimon Hackers **

_Okay, this is the big description chapter. xD I might have mentioned this before, but this story takes place a few years after 02 (Davis, Yolei, Cody, TK, Kari, Ken). But completely disregard the last few minutes of the last episode of that season, where TK talks about how everyone in the Real World has a Digimon and everything. x3; Also, Gennai is back to being old, if you didn't get that in the last chapter. And finally, the sightings around the world of Digimon did happen, but some shady company said it was just to promote their new movie. _

_I know I've said at least most of that before, but I wanted to remind you as you went into this chapter. xD_

_Anyway, this is a short chapter, but it has the whole storyline, basically. I'm sorry if you don't like it, or if I've gotten something wrong in Gennai's description of the Digital World... I tried my best. x3_**  
**

**Chapter Three: Gennai's Story**

Gennai cleared his throat. "We are in a place called the Digital World. It is a dimension accessible by some of the people, known as Digidestined, who live in the Real World. The Digi-World is made up mostly of computer data, as are the creatures who live here. You, in fact, by passing into the Digital World, are now made up of data as well."

Cat, Mark, Marie, Miguel, and Tiffany could only stare at Gennai.

"See? I told you that you wouldn't believe it," Gennai sighed. "This is the problem with children from the Real World. You're all such skeptics. Can't they educate you properly over there? All the Digimon here know about the Real World."

"We're sorry," Marie said, after a moment. "But it's not every day you hear something like this. You can understand how strange it must be to be informed of this. It's quite hard to believe, I'm afraid."

"Hmmph! Yes. Anyway, this world is populated by Digimon, like Frimon there and Dorumon here. They are also made of data, which is how they can change their shape through a process known as Digivolution. This is a long process for most Digimon, who must slowly gain experience over the course of their lives in order to Digivolve further."

"That's still faster than we can evolve!" Cat said brightly. She seemed to be the only one who believed Gennai at all, possibly because she had already found her partner. She couldn't explain it, but she knew that Frimon was real, and this wasn't some kind of hoax or dream. And if Frimon was real, what Gennai was saying had to be true, right?

"Yes, much faster. But Digimon can also evolve faster than I just explained, as well. If a Digimon has a human partner, their bond can be strong enough to make the Digimon evolve rapidly. This can be a tiring experience for the Digimon, and they will usually revert back to a lower form after Digivolving due to all the power used up through the process. There are different stages of Digimon that can be reached through Digivolution: Baby, In-Training, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, and Mega – though there are very few Mega Digimon."

"What's Frimon?" Cat asked. "Did you say he was In-Training?"

Gennai nodded. "Yes. That means he has already mastered his Baby form through experience. In this case, because he is usually in his rookie form Leormon, he has also mastered his In-Training form as well. Because he has recently been drained of power, he reverted back to Frimon."

"This sounds like some kind of video game," Mark snorted. "Or a movie, which is what Digimon _was_. All those 'sightings of Digimon' were just publicity stunts for those crappy movies! Are we really supposed to believe this?"

"You can choose to believe what you want. But sooner or later you will be forced to believe what I am saying. And I realize that you may think Digimon are just a movie. That was our doing. We couldn't have non-Digidestined humans knowing about the Digital World or they would try to come here and conquer this world." He sighed. "But I guess we haven't done a good enough job."

"What do you mean?" Cat asked.

"I'll get to that part soon enough," Gennai said.

"Well, okay. But what made Leormon use up all his energy and change back to Frimon if he's usually Leormon anyway?" Cat asked. "I mean, we didn't fight him or anything. He just had that weird thing on his back that disappeared when I touched it…"

Dorumon nodded. "I'd like to know that too! And why was he acting crazy and chasing me around, huh? He's one of my best friends!"

Gennai sighed. "Yes, I'm getting to that. In the past, two other groups of children entered the Digital World. These Digidestined were called here to find their Digimon partners and save both the Digital and Real Worlds, which were both in danger. After they grew stronger and beat the enemy, they returned back to the Real World. The first group, however, became nearly powerless due to the new technology, Dark Control Spires, that had been created. This was why the second group had to come in – they could get past that technology."

"Other people have come here?" Cat asked. "Who? Do we know them?"

"No," Gennai said. "They were from Japan. Anyway, after the second group of Digidestined saved both the worlds, it seemed as if the Digital World would be safe again. But instead, another group of humans intervened."

"Huh?" Dorumon asked. "When? I've never heard that before!"

"This is the part of the story you haven't heard yet. It explains why Leormon turned against you, and why he had to revert to In-Training form."

"Oh, okay!" Dorumon said. "I'm listening."

"This new group of people became interested in the Digital World after Digimon invaded the Real World twice in the past. They were not Digidestined, but they were curious about the Digital World. Not much is known about their motives, but they have researched for years. Now they have created a virus that re-writes the digital make-up of all Digimon – somewhat like DNA for humans. This virus adds one corrupted tag somewhere in a Digimon's data, which changes its whole being. As of a few days ago, all Digimon are now under their control."

Dorumon stared up at Gennai, eyes wide. 'That's horrible!" he said. "Why would they do that? Wait… Gennai, why aren't I affected by the virus?"

"There are a few exceptions. Some Digimon are immune to the virus through their make-up. Some are incorruptible and some just aren't affected by this virus. But all Digimon will be purified of the virus and have their digital code returned to normal when they meet their partners. I'm not sure why, but this seems to work as an anti-virus system. In these cases, a Digimon will become unconscious as their code re-writes itself, reverting to normal. The virus will completely leave the Digimon, who will then de-Digivolve."

"So that's what happened to Frimon," Cat said, looking down at the small Digimon. "He wasn't really trying to hurt Dorumon, he was just under control of the stupid virus-makers…"

"Indeed," Gennai said. "The symbol for the virus is similar to an upside-down A. Have you seen it?"

Mark blinked, forgetting for a moment that he didn't believe Gennai. "Yeah! That anarchy-but-not-really thing!"

"So you're saying we traveled through the Internet in our school's computer lab and somehow ended up in a place called the Digital World?" Miguel asked, eyebrow raised. 'That's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible, you silly Real World child. Don't you know that?" Gennai chuckled.

"Why are we here?" Cat asked.

"You are Digidestined. You have come here because you are the only ones who can save the Digimon from destroying other Digimon and quite possibly the whole Digital World."

"Why should we care about some dumb world that isn't even ours?" Mark asked. Marie shot him a glance, but he didn't notice.

"Because the Digital World and the Real World aren't as separate as you might think. They are really one and the same. Whatever affects the Digital World will also affect the Real World," Gennai said. "See? You're stuck!"

"Wait, you said there were other Digidestined groups. If they have already saved the worlds and are really strong and everything, why not have them help you? We don't know anything about this place," Cat said.

"Well… yes, that's true. But the virus makers also closed off all gates to the Digital World. The other Digidestined can't get in. But somehow, you opened the gate. You hacked into the Digital World, and that makes you the only ones who can enter this dimension. Even the computer genius Digidestined can't find a way to hack back in. Boy, Izzy was sure mad about that," Gennai said. "Just as the pattern went before, you have some way of getting around the new technology – in this case, the shutting down the gates."

"Um, okay. How were we able to enter, then?" Cat asked.

Gennai shrugged. "I don't decide who enters the Digital World and who doesn't. I just try and educate them. But, just as before, the older Digidestined can't do much to help because of the new technology that the virus makers have come up with. So a new group must be brought in."

"Okay, so we have to help save this place because if we don't, our world will be destroyed too, right?" Mark asked. "So what exactly are we supposed to do?"

"You must find your Digimon partners. With them will be your Digivices. With the Digivice and your Digimon, you must fight all Digimon who are controlled by the virus. They will have the virus symbol on them, if you forget that they're the ones who will be attacking you. To get rid of the virus in Digimon who are not your partners, you must destroy the Digimon. As some Digimon will be very strong, you must make your partners strong too in order to be able to destroy them."

Marie's eyes widened. "What? But… they're alive. How can we kill them?"

"Don't worry," Gennai said. "Once you destroy their bodies, they will turn into data, which will be absorbed by your Digivices. These will automatically edit the digital code of the Digimon and remove the virus from it, returning the Digimon to normal. Then, your Digivices will release the data and re-create the uncorrupted version of the Digimon. So you see, you won't really be killing them – you just must be able to access their data, which can only be done through destroying the Digimon's corrupted version. Your new Digivices are very impressive in that they can do this. They are the first of their kind to have this ability."

"Wait, what are Digivices?" Cat asked.

"You must have yours, since you have already purified your partner Digimon. When Leormon changed to Frimon, your Digivice should have materialized next to him."

"Oh!" Cat reached in her pocket, then pulled out the green device she had found earlier. "This thing? I thought it was a cell phone, or something."

"That's it!" Gennai cried happily. "Yes. That is your D-Hacker."

"I thought you said it was called a Digivice!" Mark said, alarmed.

"It is. There are different versions of the Digivice, though. The first Digidestined group had what were just called Digivices, and the second group had those called D-3s. Yours are D-Hackers, because you are the Digimon Hackers. You have hacked into the Digital World, and now you must hack into the digital codes of Digimon to change their make-up."

"You just said 'hack' and 'Digi' so many times," Mark said.

"You'll soon find that everything has 'Digi' in its name in the Digi-World. And all Digimon have 'mon' as their suffix. That's just how things work here."

"I get it, you do things different here. That's cool. We do things a little different in the Bay, too," Mark said.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Gennai confessed.

"That's okay. Most people don't know what people from the Bay Area are talking about," Mark said, shrugging. "They _hella_ don't know."

"Okay, we're not talking about that now, we're talking about the Digital World!" Gennai growled. "Anyway, have I covered everything?"

"Do we really have to stay here?" Cat asked. "We can't go back home?"

"Not until you defeat the virus, I'm afraid," Gennai said.

"Why can't we just hack back into the Real World whenever we want, and then come back here when we need to?" Cat asked.

"Miguel, would you like to answer that question?" Gennai inquired.

Miguel, surprised, sent the oblivious Gennai a glare. "I highly doubt everything that's being said, but it's impossible to hack into something that's not a computer program. Since the Digital World is apparently made up of data, you can hack into it. The Real World isn't made of the same stuff."

"Very good. However, it is not impossible to hack into it. But because the Real World is made of very different material, you would greatly damage it and yourselves."

"So once the virus is defeated, we can open the gates again?" Cat asked.

"That is correct."

"What about our families?" Marie asked quietly, looking down. "How can we put them through this? They'll think we've run away, or been kidnapped. They might even think we're dead." She looked up at Gennai. "We didn't ask for this. I don't want to have to destroy living things even if they will be re-created. Are you saying that the only way for us to get back to our families is to fight these Digimon?"

Gennai sighed. "Regrettably, yes."

Marie looked down again. Mark glared at Gennai. "You can't make her do this. She's not a strong person. How can you put her in a place where she could get hurt? And how could you take her away from our family like that? Maybe the others here can handle it, but Marie can't. She's never been strong enough for these kinds of things."

Cat glared at Mark. "Don't talk about her like she's not even here! How can you say those kinds of things about your own sister?"

"I'm only telling the truth!" Mark argued. "I promised my parents that I would always protect her whenever they're not around. She's never been strong."

"Maybe so, but you don't have to be so mean about it!"

"It's fine," Marie said, smiling a bit at Cat. "He's right, I'm a weak person. I know it myself."

Gennai cleared his throat. "If you recall, I did not choose the five of you. I am sorry that you don't want to be here, but it was not up to me. There is only one group of people who can change your situation and get you back home."

Mark's eyes lit up. "Who?"

"Yourselves, of course," Gennai said. "If you want to help your sister, you must save the Digimon here and defeat the virus. That is the only way for you to return home."

"I was afraid it might be an answer like that," Mark muttered.

"You all look tired. You should get some rest. Starting tomorrow, you will realize how tiring it is to be in your position. Are there any questions before I send you all off to bed?" Gennai asked.

"I don't know what time it is, but I'm not tired," Mark argued. "Really, are any of you ready to go to sleep?"

Cat shrugged. Miguel didn't do a thing, just kept the same dissatisfied scowl on his face. Marie also was silent. She still stared down at her hands, clenched into fists on her lap.

"Well, you should at least rest if you can't sleep. Any questions? You? You've barely said a word since I started explaining," Gennai told Tiffany.

It was true. She had sat there the whole time, listening, with an intent expression on her face. She seemed the most serious of them all, even more than Miguel. Cat looked at her, confused. She'd never seen Tiffany look so solemn before. She wondered if her nemesis was actually going to take this seriously?

"Wait, I'm confused," Tiffany finally said. "What's a Digimon again?"

Everyone groaned, Cat especially.

**End of Chapter Three: Gennai's Story**

_Whew. xD Anyway, please review! I've gotten a total of ONE review so far, which is fine especially for only two chapters, but I really need your feedback, even if it's negative. And reviews inspire me to write more! I don't want to lose interest in this story just because I don't get many reviews... but that might happen, since when I don't get reviews it makes me think there isn't any interest in the story, so... there's no point in continuing it! I'll keep it going a little while longer to see if there's any interest in it, but if there's not, I can take a hint. xD _

_Okay then. Remember to review (uh, like the whole paragraph above wasn't about it xD) and tell me what you think! I don't mind negative feedback, but if it's not constructive, then what's the point? xD_

_Next chapter should be up soon. And the others should be getting their Digimon very soon! Sorry about the dumb Bay Area 'humor'. x-x; See you next time!  
_


	4. Mud

**Digimon Hackers **

Well, here I am with a new chapter. :3 I hope you like it!

**Chapter Four: Mud  
**

Tiffany hadn't been able to sleep all night. She tossed and turned in her bunk, the top one on the left in what had been labeled "the girls' room". For many reasons, maybe the biggest reason being that this bed was nowhere near as comfortable as her bed at home, she hadn't slept a wink. Maybe another reason was that she had too many thoughts running through her mind for her to be able to fall asleep.

She felt like she was dreaming. How could all the things Gennai said be true? It all seemed very unlikely to her, if not impossible – though he kept saying nothing was impossible. Tiffany didn't think she could believe Gennai's story even if she wanted to. The others seemed to believe it, especially Cat. But, Tiffany reminded herself, common people like Cat were easy to fool.

Then why did Mark and Marie seem to believe Gennai as well? They were certainly not common. And then what about Miguel? Tiffany could never tell what he was thinking, especially in this case. He had said himself, in one of his rare statements, that it all sounded impossible. And he _was_ the smartest person Tiffany knew.

She flopped back down on her pillow with a sigh.

"Tiffany?" came a soft voice from below her bunk.

"Yeah?" Tiffany called back, surprised Marie was awake.

"You can't sleep either?"

"Not at all."

Marie sighed. "I don't know how Cat and the Digimon got to sleep so fast." Across from Marie, on the bottom bunk, were Dorumon and Frimon, who still hadn't awoken. On the top bunk of that bed was Cat, who had fallen asleep virtually as soon as her head hit the pillow.

"Ugh, I know. This place is so disgusting."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there's like no light coming from anywhere except those nasty fluorescent lamps. Why can't he get some windows in here?"

"I'm not sure," Marie said politely. "Would they work underground here?"

Tiffany had forgotten about that. "I guess not." She sighed. "Still, would it kill him to get some of those nice lightbulbs? You know, the… I dunno, un-fluorescent ones?"

"I think they're called incandescent," Marie said, though she knew fully that they were. "Maybe he's trying to save energy?"

"Yeah, whatever." Tiffany sighed. "So how come you can't sleep?"

"I guess I just keep thinking about what Gennai said."

"You mean if you should believe him or not?" Tiffany asked. "Yeah, me too."

"No, it's not exactly that," Marie said. "I believe him. I wasn't so sure at first, but then I thought about it. What reason does he have to lie to us? I usually trust people until it's proven that they have in some way misled me, anyway. I was thinking about how he said we'll have to destroy Digimon."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. That sounds kind of gross."

"I suppose so. But I'm more concerned with actually having to hurt one. I don't know how I could live with myself if I had to destroy one of them. It sounds horrible."

"But Gennai said they're just made of data," Tiffany said, not knowing why Marie was so worried about this. She hadn't known her very long, but Marie seemed kind of weird in that way. Tiffany had a feeling that if she picked a flower, Marie would have a funeral.

"That's true. But he also said we're only data now that we're here. And I don't feel any different. If Digimon came to our world, I'm sure they didn't feel any different even if they were made up of other materials. So what makes them any different from animals in our world?" Marie asked.

"Well, they can talk," Tiffany said. "So I guess that means they're smarter than animals."

"But animals talk too, just not in our language. Just as humans can talk to humans, dogs can talk to dogs and cats can talk to cats."

"I guess. But if they're the same as animals, what problem is there in killing them? I mean, it would be gross to actually have to do it ourselves, but meat is just dead animal anyway. So, I guess if you eat meat, what problem do you have with killing animals yourself?" Tiffany thought she was making a pretty good argument.

"I'm a vegetarian," Marie said quietly. "But I still think there's a difference between actually killing animals and eating them."

Tiffany should have guessed she was a vegetarian. So _that_ argument was lost on Marie. "Well, Gennai did say that it's not really killing them. It's just turning them into data, remember? So then we can get rid of the virus and everything."

"I guess," Marie said. She didn't sound convinced, but Tiffany didn't notice.

"I hope tomorrow there aren't a bunch of gross Digimon who are trying to kill us and everything," Tiffany said. "I mean, we only have those two to fight them."

Marie nodded, though she yawned a bit. "I think I'm going to sleep now," she said. "Goodnight, Tiffany."

"More like good morning," Tiffany scowled. "So now I'm just going to have nobody to talk to?"

Marie didn't respond. Tiffany groaned at how quickly she had fallen asleep, though at the same time, her eyelids were also feeling heavy. She turned over in the uncomfortable bed and shut her eyes. Maybe when she woke up, she would be back at home in her wonderful bed. After all, this was the kind of thing dreams were about.

-x-

When Tiffany woke up in the morning, however, she was still in the same bunk bed she had fallen asleep in. Cat and Dorumon were already up, making lots of noise. Tiffany glared at the bland white ceiling for a moment, angry at it for not being her own pink ceiling, before she turned to glare at her nemesis-turned-roommate. "Ugh, Cat! Shut up! I'm trying to sleep!"

"But it's already ten," Cat said. "I came back in here to wait for Frimon to wake up, since Gennai said it's gonna be soon, but everyone else is already awake. Gennai made pancakes."

"That's not true! It's very early! Marie is still asleep, aren't you, Marie?" Tiffany leaned over to look at the bunk below her. She became infuriated to see it was empty. "Well, that doesn't mean you have to make so much noise!" she snapped at Cat.

Cat shrugged. "Gennai told me to wake you up. I figured the further away from you I could stay, the greater my chances of survival would be. Come on, get up already! Don't you wanna go upstairs to the fresh air and sunlight?"

"No!" Tiffany yelped, pulling the covers up over her head. "I wanna go home!"

"We can go home once we get rid of the virus and open the gates back to the Real World," Cat said impatiently. "Weren't you listening to what Gennai said?"

"And how come you believe everything he says?" Tiffany demanded, sitting up and flinging back the covers to show Cat her face – possibly on the verge of exploding. "That guy is probably just senile. He doesn't know what he's talking about! There are no such things as Digimon!"

Cat sighed. "Tiffany, if there are no such things as Digimon, then what are Frimon and Dorumon?"

"I don't _know_," Tiffany huffed. "Weird animals?"

Dorumon sprang up onto Tiffany's bunk in a cat-like maneuver. "Believe me, what Gennai told you is true," he said earnestly. "He just told me yesterday about how the stupid virus-makers are turning all my friends into big hungry killer-things, but I believe him. There's evidence that he's telling the truth, for one thing. And Gennai is very trustworthy."

"Right," Tiffany said facetiously, rolling her eyes. "There's evidence of Digimon and the Digital World. Like what?"

Dorumon blinked. "Well, me. And Frimon. And we're _in_ the Digital World. Look, Digimon have come to your world before, back when the former Digidestined were called here. Your world must have knowledge of them."

Cat sighed. "Well… there was that whole movie thing that took credit for that, remember? Everyone was all excited when we thought there really were Digimon, but then they told us that they weren't real."

"I wonder why you weren't summoned to help get Digimon back to the Digital World?" Dorumon mused. "That was when they started appearing all over the world. Gennai left to go to the Real World then." He sniffed. "It was pretty lonely then."

"Maybe it was because we weren't actual… um, Digidestined then," Cat said. "I mean, if we had become Digidestined back then, we wouldn't be able to come to the Digital World now, right? Because… oh, I don't know. Gennai said it was a matter of old technology. So maybe our technology is just newer."

"Hello!" Tiffany said. "This isn't real. It's like some video game. Can we please get out of this weird movie or whatever it is and go back home?"

Cat glanced at Dorumon. "Okay!" she said. "Just get dressed and come upstairs to the outside and we can go home!"

Dorumon nodded. "We're sorry to have tricked you, but now that you've figured us out, you can go home now. A plane is upstairs to take you back to your house."

Tiffany leapt down to the floor from her top bunk. It sounded painful, and both Cat and Dorumon cringed, but Tiffany didn't seem to notice. "Where are my clothes?!" she demanded. "Are they clean yet?"

"They're in the laundry room," Cat said.

Tiffany went tearing into the laundry room and retrieved her clothes, which were the only ones still sitting on the top of the washing machine, folded and pristine. She hugged them to her when she saw that all the mud was gone from it, and raced back to the bathroom to change. Once she was dressed, she ran out to the main room, where the others were all sitting around, looking impatient. Cat had returned to that room, and she sat on a couch holding the still sleeping Frimon in her arms. Dorumon was sitting on Marie's lap, and Mark was flipping channels on the TV. Miguel was also sitting on one of the couches, appearing bored out of his mind. Gennai was nowhere to be found.

"I'm going up!" Tiffany yelled, running past them. She opened the door to the tree and ran up the spiral staircase, finally ending at the door to the outside. Throwing this door open, she looked around, expecting to see a private jet with celebrities and food. But instead, she saw nothing. "What?!"

The others quickly appeared from the door behind her, and Dorumon immediately closed it with his special knock that locked it.

"What is going on?" Tiffany screeched. "Where is the plane?"

"Uh, yeah, about that," Cat said.

"Sorry!" Dorumon said. "We had to get you up here somehow."

"What?! No! Let me back in!" Tiffany whined.

"Gennai says we all have to go," Dorumon told her. "Sorry."

"I don't want to!" Tiffany protested, stamping her foot. If there was one thing she could count on, it was a good, old-fashioned tantrum. She began gearing up for it and took a deep breath to begin.

"Stop it, Tiffany," Cat said, interrupting her preparation. "I know you're used to always getting your way, but that's not how it's going to be here. Your parents always do what you say, your friends always do what you say… even your teachers give into your whining! But we aren't going to let you walk all over us."

Tiffany glared at her. Cat thought she was so great now that they were in some dumb Digital World and Tiffany's friends weren't there to back her up! Cat was just a loser, escaping into some kind of fantasy world where she was the ruler of everything and would take revenge on people who didn't like her. Namely, Tiffany. She wasn't going to let _Cat_ stand in the way of her getting what she wanted! "_No_! I want to go back inside if I can't go home! You can't make meee!"

But then, before she could say another word, Mark butted in. "Ugh, stop whining. You can't go back inside, so you're going to have to do what we tell you to. Either come with us or stay here alone. You can be sure one of those nasty Digimon will find you."

Tiffany would have protested some more, but there was logic in what Mark said… She didn't want to be alone when a big, ugly Digimon attacked! "...Fine," she spat, sniffing. "But there's no reason for me to even be here. Why are we up here? That thing's not even awake yet," she said, pointing at Frimon. "We couldn't fight anything that attacked us."

"_This thing_," Cat growled, "is going to wake up soon. Gennai told me to bring him up here to get some fresh air. He said that might help wake him up. He gave me a bunch of food to give to Frimon, too."

"But isn't it too weak to fight anything, like, in this form?" Tiffany asked.

"That's why Gennai told us to only fight In-Training Digimon," Mark said. "Weren't you listening? Oh, right. You were asleep."

Tiffany crossed her arms. "And how are we supposed to know which Digimon are In-Training?" she asked. "Miguel might be a genius or whatever, but only in stuff that's _real_. Unlike Digimon."

Cat pulled the green device out of her pocket, balancing Frimon in one arm. "With my D-Hacker, of course!" she said brightly.

Tiffany, who had thought she found a question they couldn't answer, growled. "Yeah. Whatever."

"Ready to go?" Dorumon asked, looking up at Marie. She wasn't holding him anymore, but he still stood faithfully by her side. Marie nodded with a small smile, though Tiffany knew that from their late-night discussion, Marie wasn't as confident as she looked, especially about hurting the Digimon. But Tiffany really didn't care at the moment. They weren't real, and if they were, it was their fault she was here. She was under no obligation to feel sorry for the stupid things.

"Let's go, then!" Mark announced. "Okay, where do we go first?"

Dorumon shrugged. "Any direction, I guess. There are bound to be Digimon around here!"

"That way!" Mark yelled, pointing in a random direction. Tiffany couldn't help but stare at him. Even in her annoyed state, she couldn't help but admit that Mark was quite possibly the cutest guy she'd ever seen. Forget Miguel! She'd always wanted to be his girlfriend so she could get good grades. But who cared about good grades when you could date an _Ardeaux_? Mark could just buy a 4.0 for her, and then they could get married and she'd never have to do anything but sit around all day, eating chocolates and going shopping and having her friends over. She imagined the summers they'd spend, in all the Ardeaux homes… She could travel first class all the time, not just _business_ class like she always had to take whenever they went anywhere. No, wait. She would be an Ardeaux. She would have her own personal jet. It would be pink and white, and on the side it would say TIFFANY ARDEAUX, so everyone would know it was hers. It would never ever get dirty. If there was one thing she hated (though, of course, there were lots of things she hated) it was dirt and mud. They made pretty things so ugly. She couldn't stand them.

While Tiffany was lost in her dreams, the others had already started walking. After snapping out of it, she looked to see that everyone had left her behind. Marie glanced back apologetically, but said nothing. Tiffany was sure she didn't want to get left behind, either. After all, Marie was such a frail little thing. Mark was such a wonderful, amazing person to look after her all the time. But then again, of _course_ her future husband was wonderful and amazing. He would have to be to be good enough for her, right?

The very person she was swooning over looked back to see what Marie saw. "Come _on_, Tiff!" he said. "The Digimon are hungry!"

She didn't care that he had just called her Tiff, one of her most despised nicknames. "You're so thoughtful!" she called back, running after them.

-x-

After awhile, Tiffany lost her happy, floaty mood. They had walked a long way, and hadn't even seen any Digimon. For a world supposed to be overrun with the gross little things, the Digital World didn't seem to live up to its expectations. Frimon wasn't even awake yet. Tiffany didn't see how Cat thought it was so cute. It looked like an ugly cat to her. And, of course, she hated cats (mostly because she hated Cat). And Dorumon was like a weird rodent thing. From what she'd seem of them, Digimon didn't look good at all.

"I'm tired," she whined. "Can't we just rest and let a Digimon come to us?"

"That doesn't seem like that bad of an idea, actually," Cat said.

"Shut up, Cat – huh?" Tiffany asked, astounded. "Did you just agree with me?"

"Well, we should take a rest, right?" Cat stopped walking and turned around to face them. "We've been walking for a long time now, and we have to remember that Frimon hasn't even woken up yet. We can't fight any Digimon that comes along, unless Dorumon wants to help us out."

Dorumon sighed. "I told you, I don't fight. The other Digimon might like it, but I don't."

"Not even for a good cause like this?" Cat said, trying to convince him.

The Digimon rubbed his nose. "Believe me, I couldn't even win any fight I got in. It's much better if you just wait for Frimon to wake up. Besides, it seems like it'll be soon. See? His frill's not even droopy anymore."

"Okay. Let's take a break here, huh?" Mark said, surveying the area. It looked just like the rest of the forest.

"Right," said Cat. She sat down on the ground and placed Frimon on her lap. Mark and Marie sat too. Miguel remained standing, as did Tiffany – though for much different reasons.

"I'm not sitting on the ground," Tiffany said. "I'm wearing a white skirt. The ground has dirt on it! And look at that grass. I bet it's all muddy underneath it."

"Oh, calm down," Cat said. "It's not muddy. If you're so worried, then just sit on your knees and don't get your skirt on the ground."

Tiffany, annoyed at seeing Cat's logic, did what she said. "Fine," she told her. "But my skirt better not get dirty!"

"Miguel, why don't you sit down?" Marie asked.

Miguel didn't say anything for a moment. "It doesn't make sense," he said. "None of this can be real." He was staring at a tree. "Gennai said… This is all made up of data? It can't be… it's solid… Data can't act this way. It's impossible."

"Data has a life of its own in the Digital World!" Dorumon said brightly. "Okay, I guess it's weird at first, but soon you'll get over it. It really makes perfect sense to me! It's just like how you humans are made up of that DNA thing – "

"No it's not!" Miguel said. "I told you, it doesn't make any sense. For all this to happen, it's just impossible. I've been thinking it over, and it doesn't work." He took a few steps away from the group.

"Miguel?" Cat asked. "Are you going somewhere?"

"This can't be true," he said. "It can't be real. I'm going to find out where we really are." He went striding off through the trees, walking briskly for someone who avoided exercise.

"Miguel! Wait!" Cat called, alarmed. "Come back!" She grabbed Frimon in her arms and was about to stand up to chase after him. But at that second, the little Digimon's eyes slid open and he stared up at Cat. Her eyes widened too and she completely forgot Miguel.

Marie stood up as well. "I'm going after Miguel," she said.

Mark shook his head. "No," he said. "Sit down. It's too dangerous out there."

"Exactly. We can't just let him go!"

"He'll be fine. He'll come back just as soon as he realizes how dumb his idea is. Sit down, Marie."

Marie, used to Mark's orders, obeyed. She knew he was probably right, anyway.

"Cat?" Frimon was saying.

"Frimon! You're awake!" she finally managed to say. "How are you feeling?"

Frimon yawned loudly. "Fine," he said, though his stomach growled as he said this. "Hungry."

Dorumon bounded over. "Frimon! Hiya!"

Frimon smiled at Dorumon. "Dorumon! I'm sorry for attacking you! I couldn't help it…"

"I know," Dorumon said. "It's okay. Gennai explained it to me."

Frimon looked back to Cat. "Cat, you were the one who saved me. I don't know what happened to me, but you made me all better! And I've been waiting for you for such a long time!"

"Waiting for me?" Cat asked, surprised.

"Yeah! You're my partner! How did you fix me, anyway?"

Cat – with interjections from Dorumon – told Frimon about the virus and what the new Digidestined had to do. After her story, Frimon looked angry. "I hate them!" he cried. "I hate the virus makers! It was horrible when I was corrupted. I'll make them pay for what they did… And for what they're doing to all Digimon!"

Dorumon hid behind Marie. "Frimon, stop being scary!" He looked up at the female twin. "Now Frimon there is a Digimon who likes to fight. He's _strong_, too. Hey, Cat! Use your Digivice on him to see all about him!"

Cat pulled the Digivice out of her pocket. "What do I do with it?" she asked. She still hadn't looked at it much yet. Now she noted that its metallic green cover had a big golden circle on it with intricate symbols drawn on it. It almost looked like a ring, she thought… It almost looked like something very familiar… But she couldn't quite guess what that was. The top of the Digivice also had what looked like an antenna coming out of it, only it was in the middle and not off to one side like a phone.

"Hmm, that's an interesting design," Dorumon said.

"That looks like a cell phone," Mark commented. "What happens if you flip it open?"

Cat did so, and saw that inside looked a lot like a cell phone. It had a full keyboard of letters and numbers, as well as the other common keys to a phone, below the screen, which was blank.

"Close it again and point it at Frimon," Dorumon instructed. "The little pointy thing."

Closing it, Cat aimed the D-Hacker at Frimon. A holographic image appeared over the ring on the front, in the same size and with the same golden border. The image was of Frimon, and his name was below his picture.

"_Frimon,_" came a voice from the D-Hacker. "_A lesser-type Digimon with a frill on his neck. He is able to harden the fur on his frill and use it as armor when danger gets too close_. _His Tail Slap attack is powerful enough to knock out a Rookie level Digimon._"

Frimon nodded. "It's true!"

"Um, whose voice was that?" Mark asked.

"The D-Hacker's, I guess," Cat answered, shrugging her shoulders. "Well, anyway, I'm glad to see that you're awake again, Frimon!"

"I'm glad to be awake! And I'm all energized! Except… well…" His stomach growled again. "Sorry. My stomach's not very subtle."

"Oh! Don't worry, Gennai gave me a bunch of food for you," Cat said, revealing a pouch from her pocket. Inside were miniature cookies, and Frimon's eyes lit up when he saw them. Dorumon looked jealously on and tried not to drool too much as Frimon gobbled down the cookies. Cat could only laugh at his pace.

Tiffany, on the other hand, stared at Frimon. "That thing is like… one of those things in sinks. You know? Where you throw stuff down it and it, like, goes away?"

"Garbage disposer," Cat supplied.

"Nobody asked you, Cat! You, you… you garbage poser!" Tiffany shot back.

Cat shrugged. "That was pretty bad," she said.

"Well, you're the one familiar with garbage, so maybe you can make better jokes about it," Tiffany retorted.

Cat's eyes lit up. "Okay! Um… What's red, black, and white all over?"

Mark also looked excited. "Oh! A… newspaper?"

"Yeah!" Cat grinned. "Well… um… make it more garbage-related."

"A newspaper… in the trash?"

Cat clapped. "Yay!"

Tiffany sighed. "You think my joke was bad? That was positively, absolutely, utterly, astoundingly… completely… very… really… bad."

"Okay, Marie, it's your turn to tell a joke!" Mark declared, turning to his sister. She wasn't paying attention. Her head was turned and her green eyes were intently watching the forest where Miguel had disappeared. Mark blinked, forgetting Miguel for a moment. "Marie? Are you okay?"

She looked back at him, a worried expression on her face. "Miguel hasn't come back yet. What if… what if a big Digimon got him?"

Mark shook his head. "He's smart. I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

"But he's only a human! You saw Leormon, and he was only a Rookie. Gennai said there are three other stages above Rookies. What if Miguel came across one of them? Leormon was bad enough, and we couldn't even beat him all combined!" She glanced at Frimon. "Sorry," she said. "I know it wasn't your fault."

"It's fine," he said between mouthfuls. "I'm the sorry one."

Dorumon sighed. "I should have gone after him. Oh, why didn't I go after him? I was just so excited to see Frimon was awake again, and… oh, Gennai will be so angry if we come back and he's not there! Almost as mad as the time Frimon and I nearly destroyed that Destiny Stone! Remember that? He was really mad then!"

Frimon nodded gleefully. "Yeah. Being as it was the last one, and everything. It's not like we _meant_ to fall in that soup lake thing."

"Should I go after him now?" Dorumon asked frantically. "Oh, I'm no tracker. We need some kind of doggy Digimon for that. Or a flying one. Agh, I'm useless!" He hid his head under his paws.

"Don't worry," Marie said, picking him up. "I'm sure Mark's right. And Miguel will remember where Gennai's house is. It'll be fine. We'll see him soon."

"Should we stay here or go in his direction?" Mark asked.

"Let's leave a letter here for him and go the way he went!" Cat said. "Who has paper?"

Nobody did.

"Okay, well… Here! Here're some sticks!" Cat began collecting twigs from the ground. "We can make a message out of them!" She threw the bundle in front of her. "What should we say?"

Tiffany wasn't paying attention. Instead, she was lost in her head, thinking of how much she wanted to go back home. Well, not _home_, because her family was too annoying. But back with her friends. Or in her room, where her stupid sisters weren't _supposed_ to bother her. But she was suddenly jolted out of these thoughts when she heard a noise from the woods near her – like a huge crashing. Everyone else, except for Cat, jumped as well.

"Uh oh," Dorumon said. "That doesn't sound good."

Cat was intent on writing the message to Miguel. She had shaped "Go back to Gen" so far, and was working hard to finish the "nai's house" of the message. She glanced up to see everyone else on their feet – well, except for Frimon, who didn't have feet.

"Huh? What is it?" Cat asked.

"Didn't you hear that noise, idiot?" Tiffany snarled, though Cat saw fear in her eyes. 'There's something in there!"

Mark stood protectively in front of Marie, who had gathered up Dorumon in her arms. Tiffany had also scooted behind Mark. Frimon was standing his ground in front of Cat.

Suddenly, a large Digimon came crashing out of the trees, knocking over a few and breaking branches of others. It looked like a huge grey pile of sludge with large silver claws and fangs. It had metal plates on its eyes and smelled terribly. The virus symbol was on its forehead.

Tiffany screamed. "What _is_ that thing?" she demanded, plugging her nose.

"Raremon," Dorumon said. "It's Champion level! We gotta run!"

"Agreed," Mark said. "Come on, Marie!" He grabbed her arm and tugged her away. Tiffany raced after them. "Wait for meee!"

Cat glanced up at the approaching Raremon, her eyes starting to water from the stench. But she wasn't done with her message yet.

"Cat!" Frimon yelled. "We have to go! I can't fight that thing!"

Cat blinked. "But the message! What if Miguel comes and doesn't get what it means?"

"He'll get what it means! Come on, we have to run!" Frimon wrapped his tail around her arm and tried to pull her.

"Okay!" Cat said, adding one last twig and picking up Frimon. She ran towards the others, going as fast as she could. "That thing smells like wet garbage!"

Finally, they had run so far that they no longer smelled Raremon. They all took a break from running in a small meadow that Tiffany found to be covered with mud puddles.

"It's gross here," she said, still shaking from the encounter with Raremon.

"Not as gross at that last Digimon, though, right?" Cat asked, trying to be optimistic. "That thing was like a walking garbage dump."

"You would know," Tiffany growled. "I hate this world! All the stupid Digimon are so disgustingly gross and I hate them and I want to go home and no Digimon is even _cute _ at all!" She stomped on the ground, but her flip-flop got stuck in the mud. "Aggh!"

"She said I wasn't cute!" Dorumon cried.

Marie patted him. 'There, there," she said. "I think you and Frimon are both cute."

Frimon sulked. "I'm not cute," he said. "I'm ferocious!"

"OH MY GOD!" Tiffany suddenly shrieked, making them all jump.

"What?!" Mark asked. "What happened? Is Raremon back?"

"No!" Tiffany cried. "Look how _cute_ that little darling is!" She pointed to a small Digimon, forgetting she had just said all Digimon were ugly, who had appeared from behind the grass. It looked almost like a small sheep, with a puffy white body. Its legs, floppy ears, and curled tail were pink. Choppy bangs fell over its face. On the soft fur under its face was the virus symbol. The Digimon glared at them, though Tiffany still found it adorable.

"Let me use my D-Hacker!" Cat said, pointing her green Digivice at the Digimon.

"_Shaomon_," it said. "_A small In-Training Digimon with demonic powers. It is usually very friendly_."

"In-Training!" Cat exclaimed. "We can fight it, right, Frimon?"

Frimon nodded. "Yeah!" He jumped to the ground and in between Shaomon and the Digidestined. "So I really have to destroy it?"

"Yeah," Cat said. "I know it seems kind of harsh, but Gennai said that as soon as it turns into data, my D-Hacker will absorb it and purify the data, then re-create the Digimon."

Frimon nodded. "Well, then I trust Gennai. Tail Slap!" Frimon rushed at Shaomon and hit it with his tail. Shaomon went flying across the field with a cry.

"Oh, stop it!" Tiffany shrieked. "It's too cute to hurt!"

Marie closed her eyes. She couldn't watch the fight. Mark, on the other hand, was cheering Frimon on. "Come on, Frimon! You can destroy that ball of fluff!"

Frimon darted after Shaomon. "Tail Slap!" he cried, whacking Shaomon with his tail as soon as the little Digimon tried to get up again. Now the small sheep-like Digimon flew towards the Digidestined and fell against the ground hard.

"I thought you said this attack was strong enough to knock out a Rookie Digimon!" Cat called. "Isn't this one only In-Training?"

"I feel bad!" Frimon said. "But I guess I can't hold back anymore. Destroying it will help it. Tail Slap!" This time, Shaomon flew high up in the air, not far away. As it came back down to the ground, it fell towards a mud puddle.

"No!" Tiffany cried, then jumped towards it. She caught the Digimon just before it fell in the mud. Then she picked it up and looked at it. "There," she said. "You're too cute and clean to get all muddy and gross!"

Shaomon could only stare at her with shocked eyes. "Tiffany?" she said before fainting. Tiffany blinked. "Whaaat? What just happened?"

Dorumon smiled. "Yay!" he said. "Shaomon must be your partner! Come on now, touch the virus symbol!"

Tiffany, bewildered, did as he said. The symbol, like it had on Frimon, shot into the air and turned into small particles before floating away on the wind. Shaomon began to glow, and shrunk into a small ball Digimon who fit in one of Tiffany's hands. In the other hand appeared a glowing object. When the glowing died down, a smaller version of Shaomon was in her right hand and a pink Digivice was in her left hand.

"Is this… Shaomon?" Tiffany asked, staring at the Digimon.

"No, that's her Baby form," Dorumon said. "That's Paomon. Yay! Tiffany found her partner!"

"Paomon?" Tiffany repeated. "My partner?" Suddenly, she lost her balance and fell forward, face-first, into the mud. She held her arms up above her as if by instinct, and both Paomon and her D-Hacker were left mud-less.

"Tiffany!" Marie exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

Tiffany pulled herself out of the mud. "Never better," she said sarcastically, though her wide eyes were still on Paomon – not even on her clothes, which were all covered in muck.

-x-

When they got back to Gennai's house and Tiffany was waiting for her clothes, which were being washed, she still couldn't stop staring at Paomon. She didn't even seem to care that she had to wear Gennai's weird clothes.

Marie came over to her and sat down on the couch next to her with a small smile. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Tiffany nodded. "It's just weird," she said. She still held the pink Digivice tight in her hand, and cradled Paomon in her arms. "I have a partner," she said. "I never even thought about the fact that I was going to get a Digimon like Cat did. I didn't think any of this was real. But… I don't know. I can't, like, explain it. I just… believe it now. I guess Paomon has made it seem more real."

Marie nodded. "That makes sense," she said. "After all, Paomon is your partner. You must feel a kind of special bond with her. So that means you now have a bond to the Digital World as well. That seems to me that it would make you accept Gennai's story. Now you know what it's like to have a Digimon partner."

Tiffany smiled a tiny bit. "Yeah," she said. "I guess so."

"That's so strange that you got a pink and white one," Marie said. "I wonder if Digimon somehow reflect their human partners. Cat and Frimon seem alike to me. And if I were to compare Cat to any animal, it would be a lion."

"So you're saying I'm a sheep?" Tiffany asked.

"No, just that you like pink and white. I think Paomon is a dog, anyway."

"A dog? No way. Shaomon looked so much like a sheep to me. Paomon must be."

Marie laughed. "Okay then. I guess you're probably right, since you're her partner."

"Yeah," Tiffany said with a small smile. "I am."

-x-

Deep in the woods, Miguel still continued on, walking quickly with a determined expression on his face. He had no intention of ever returning to the others. He would be quite fine without them. And he was planning on finding a way home, anyway. This couldn't be a real place. It wasn't possible.

_There's no such thing as a Digital World_, he thought to himself. _And I will find a way out of this stupid place._

He was so intent on getting back home, he didn't notice the shadow that glided after him in the darkness.

**End of Chapter Four: Mud**

Uh oh... the group's splitting up? And Tiffany actually smiles and does something nice for once? xD Please review and tell me what you think!


End file.
